Alastair Campbell says he was when publishing his diary extracts about life in Downing Street.
But this punctiliousness about vetting doesn't seem to have involved complying with the wishes of the Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell. He asked Campbell not to proceed with the book at all - that's according to the evidence O'Donnell gave to the Information Tribunal. This evidence has been most usefully by Sam Coates of the Times, he says for the benefit of 'FOI watchers and civil service nerds' (thanks, Sam).
This was part of the current hearing into the disclosure of cabinet minutes relating to the Iraq war.
O'Donnell's reluctance to sanction Campbell's book is very interesting. This issue - of the extent to which ministers, officials and special advisers are or are not authorised to write memoirs - has important implications for the handling of freedom of information requests, and I am sure we will be hearing more of it in this context.
O'Donnell told the Tribunal yesterday that a number of Cabinet ministers had asked him about the case and how it might change how the Cabinet operates. I wonder if any of them were also thinking about its potential impact on the writing of their memoirs.
Tomorrow the will start hearing a freedom of information case about cabinet minutes that could have major repercussions for the impact of FOI. It is being treated with great importance both within government and within the Information Commissioner's Office.
The case concerns the records of cabinet meetings in March 2003 which considered legal advice on the imminent invasion of Iraq.
The Information Commissioner Richard Thomas earlier this year that the formal minutes of these meetings should be revealed. The Cabinet Office is now appealing against this to the Tribunal.
Richard Thomas however decided not to support the disclosure of the notebook in which the Cabinet Secretary records discussion during the meetings. The Tribunal will also consider this material, which may be more detailed.
The significance the government attaches to this hearing is clear from the fact that they have decided that the Cabinet Secretary himself will give evidence to argue that releasing these minutes could impede free and frank discussion in the future. The Information Commissioner's Office is planning to have the distinguished Whitehall historian give evidence on their side.
There are numerous other cases about Cabinet minutes still under consideration by the Information Commissioner. This hearing could set an informal and influential precedent, although each FOI application has to be decided on its individual circumstances and the Commissioner is arguing that 'release of these two specific and unusual sets of Cabinet minutes would not in itself undermine the convention of Cabinet collective responsibility'.
If the Tribunal rejects the government's appeal, Ministers are most unlikely to give in at that stage. They could either use a special provision of the FOI Act to overrule the Tribunal for the first time, or they could appeal to the High Court.
You are a . But you are also a . Your local council has been running an anti-littering campaign, and you want to know how many litterers have been fined.
How do you find out? Naturally, . 
Well, it's a right available to every citizen, and that includes the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Liam Byrne.
The answer: on average, three a week (and some of them refuse to pay).
It's not known if Gordon Brown has made any freedom of information requests.
When a car manufacturer seeks to tell vehicle owners that there is a defect affecting a particular model, it may use the DVLA database to send out letters to possibly thousands and thousands of relevant car owners.
If the information concerns a safety defect, then it is also on the website of the Vehicle & Operator Services Agency, an executive agency of the Department for Transport.
But what about those cases where the defect is judged not to be a safety risk? VOSA has turned down a freedom of information requests for details of such 'non-safety recalls'. Its policy is not to make the information generally public, arguing that people 'might simply form an incorrect judgment about the competence of a manufacturer to build a fault-free vehicle'.
The Information Commissoner has today , ruling that if the information about a defect is already available to potentially thousands of vehicle keepers then it cannot be considered confidential. The decision also states that the way to stop the public forming an incorrect view of manufacturers' reliability is to provide an appropriate explanation of the information.
The has been told to reveal some details of legal advice it received during the 'cash-for-peerages' affair which it has been trying to keep secret.
This has been announced today in a by the Information Tribunal in response to an appeal I made. It partly overturns a from the Information Commissioner that, while forcing the HoLAC to release some material on the controversy, said this need not extend to any of the legal advice.
It is the latest stage in a lengthy process which has seen the HoLAC gradually pushed into disclosing more and more information. It now has 30 days to comply with the latest judgment or appeal.
However the Tribunal decided that it was in the public interest for other details of the legal advice to remain secret.
This is only the second time that the Tribunal has ordered that the traditional secrecy of legal advice should be breached due to freedom of information. The involved Merseytravel.
The Tribunal made clear that its ruling in this case was because of the exceptional role in public life played by the HoLAC. Its remit both in proposing non-party peers itself and also in vetting party nominations for peerages gives it significant influence over the composition of Parliament and thus indirectly on its decisions.
Records which the HoLAC was previously forced to reveal to the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ showed that Tony Blair did not personally have to sign official statements about the financial contributions to Labour made by people he was nominating for peerages. This was partly on the basis that it would be 'helpful' if he did not sign declarations which might turn out to be inaccurate.
A third government department has today been heavily criticised by the Information Commissioner Richard Thomas over its failings in the way it answers freedom of information requests.
The latest department under criticism is Communities and Local Government. Thomas has issued a drawing attention to extreme delays in the way CLG has handled internal reviews from requesters dissatisfied with the initial response.
The Commissioner discovered four cases in which reviews had taken over 400 working days.
The two previous parts of central government whose procedures have been condemned by Thomas are the and the , now part of the Ministry of Justice.
A 
